Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes

3:58 PM, Sunday August 9th 2020

Drawabox lesson 1 - Album on Imgur

Imgur: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/glBB76W

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The lines and ellipses part were a bit of a rough start, since i didn't abide the rules and just became clueless. 3 months later i re-read everything and followed your instructions.

3 users agree
1:55 AM, Monday August 10th 2020

I've looked at your work and these are the things I noticed.

Lines

On the superimposed lines exercise, there's a bit of fraying on both ends. Take your time placing the pen on the starting point before running it across on the other end. Towards the bottom of the page, this seems to have improved through the next page. Some lines wobble towards the bottom. Only slow your arm's trajectory if you can afford it. This comes with practice. On the ghosted lines page, you're running the lines more than once maybe accidentally. Don't place the pen too close to the paper when ghosting if this is the case. Ghosted planes have a similar issue. the planes themselves are well drawn but its hard to tell when you're running over the ghosted lines more than once.

Ellipses

The table of ellipses have all sorts of mistakes. The biggest mistake is running over the ellipses too many times. Three is the limit. Don't go over it. Two is ideal. Try to strive for that number. Circular ellipses are inconsistent in shape and some overlap and overshoot. The elliptical ones overshoot more. Remember to ghost the ellipses before ghosting more. Ghosted planes have the same issue with the number of passes. Some ellipses are trying to fit into the plane like some sort of mold. It almost reaches out to touch the edges. rather than maintaining an evenness to the ellipse itself. This should be your main priority. On the funnels exercise some ellipses overshoot and don't align to the minor axis. During the exercise, we drew a line running perpendicular to the minor axis. Use that line to guide the ghosting of the first ellipse. That way, the other ellipses come out properly aligned. All in all, it might be a good idea to incorporate the ellipses exercises into a daily 10-15 minute warmup.

Boxes

On the rough perspective exercise, again there are too many passes per line also noted on the second page. Remember to plot the points and ghost before drawing the line. Don't try to correct a mistake. What's done is done. The point of these ghosting exercises is to see where you're struggling so you don't encounter that problem in the future. Another problem is the orientation of the first page. This setup gives you too much space, which isn't ideal for something in one point perspective. the boxes on the sides will have lines that look like they don't converge anywhere because they're too far away from the VP. Plus it's alot harder to plot those out because of the increased distance from the VP. Because of this, its better to start out by plotting the points closest to the VP, then use that to provide some clue as to where the rest of the points should be. On the rotated boxes exercise, You drew more than two boxes on each side. This is a tough one so don't fret if you didnt nail it right away. The way I've come to understand it is that the center box is in one point perspective, the boxes along it vetically and horizontally are one two point perspective and the boxes that sit diagonally are on three point perspective. Every time the box rotates, their VPs shift as well. For example, none of the boxes really share the center VP as one of their VPs besides the center box. That VP shifts vertically, horizontally, or diagonally depending on which way the box is rotated. Its complicated. For the organic perspective exercise, the edges of the boxes are too parallel to each other. No real convergence is happening and some are even converging the wrong way. The 250 box challenge would be great for tackling that kind of problem.

1 users agree
8:01 PM, Monday February 22nd 2021

Superimposed Lines: You experimented with different sizes of lines, so it's a good start. It's also good that you have drawn CSI lines with your curves as well. I want you to pay extra attention to putting the tip of your pen onto the starting point carefully, fraying at both ends is considered as a mistake.

Ghosted Lines & Planes: This is where your work becomes problematic. We do not draw through our straight lines outside of the first exercise, but you draw through them repeatedly until the end of this lesson. This makes it impossible for me to judge your line quality. I also want you to carefully scan all of your pages before submitting them for community feedback. Most of your pages are really blurry and I don't want to see your pencilcase or things like that, this kind of bad framing distracts your viewer from focusing on your artwork. You can download an app such as CamScanner to do the work.

Tables of Ellipses: You draw through them too much. Only 2-3 is enough. Draw through your ellipse for 2-3 times, make your mistakes, and move on to the next one. If you were using pencil this kind of ellipses might be kinda usable, you could erase your mistakes. But with ink, these are just unusable. These just make your work unreadable and terribly crowded. Please don't do that again.

Ellipses in Planes: You did not frame your page correctly, some parts of your page are missing. Please take extra time to correctly frame your work. You also draw through both your lines and ellipses too much in this exercise, we don't want that.

Funnel: Again, these pages could be 10/10 if you would just read through the intructions carefully and not draw through your ellipses this much. Resist that tendency!

Plotted perspective: Looks like you understood what 2 pt. perspective is about.

Rough perspective: Is this page A4? If not, I want you to work with A4 and with the same layout that instructed in the exercise page, and make your boxes bigger with longer lines, because drawing this small may force you into drawing with your wrist. Don't try to correct your lines with drawing through them, make your mistakes!

Rotated boxes: Try to visualize how these tapered boxes turn into a spherical shape. When they go away from the center, their perspective become more dramatic. You did not need to make this exercise perfectly but pay attention to the example homework next time, count how many boxes are there.

Organic Perspective: You could use your space better than that. Your frames are mostly empty, just practice on a different sheet of paper before committing to drawing them with ink.

Next Steps:

I want you to redo this lesson with paying extra attention to instructions. Read through them many times. If you are not sure about what you are doing, don't do it.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
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